Ficlets

As It Slips Through Your Fingers

Her every breath was a shallow one, a flutter in her throat and lungs. She floated in a haze; and yet at the same time, she could see her surroundings with painfully harsh clarity. The priest’s blessings buzzed in her ears, and then fell away as she drifted into a cloud of forced indifference. Tension brewed behind her pale eyes, and her ashen, thin-lipped grimace.

But she refused to cry. If she cried, that would mean she accepted his death. That he had really died. That he really had been hit by a drunk driver at 10:37 PM on a frigid December evening at the corner of Second Chance Boulevard, and left to die, with only his killer to watch as he slipped away.

How could he leave his only sister behind?

She tossed the handful of dirt into the grave. Then she kissed the lily-her favorite flower-and let it fall from her trembling hand into the gaping maw of death.

Something cracked. Maybe her heart.

So she ran, blinded by tears. And crashed into something soft and alive. She looked up.

Him.

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